ABUSE TRACKER

COLORADO
Daily Camera

By Mitchell Byars, Camera Staff Writer
POSTED: 11/06/2013

Boulder police this week ticketed two pastors and two elders at Longmont’s VineLife Church for failing to report child abuse after investigators say they did not tell police about reports that a youth pastor at the church had sexually assaulted a child, despite evidence he “repeatedly confessed” to them.

Jason Allen Roberson, 35, is facing six felony charges after police said he had an “inappropriate relationship” with a teenage church member.

The victim, who lives in Boulder and is now 24, told police she and Roberson had an inappropriate relationship that began when she was 15 and continued for seven years.

Roberson turned himself in to police in September.

Over the course of the past two days, police ticketed two pastors and two church elders for failing to report the possible sex assault.

Executive Pastor Robert Phillip Young, 65, and Pastor Luke Michael Humbrecht, 30 were ticketed, as were church elders Edward Charles Bennell, 65, and Warren Lloyd Williams, 66.

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COLORADO
TheDenverChannel

lan Gathright
BOULDER, Colo. – Five officials at Vinelife Church in Longmont are accused of failing to report that a youth pastor had allegedly sexually assaulted a church member since she was 15 years old.

Boulder police said Wednesday detectives have served summonses on Vinelife Church executive pastor Robert Phillip “Bob” Young, pastor Luke Humbrecht, pastor Edward Bennell and church elder Warren Lloyd Williams. A fifth church official, who is currently out of the country, will be served a summons when he returns to Colorado, said police spokeswoman Kim Kobel. Police will identify the fifth after he’s been charged.

Each official faces one charge of duty to report child abuse, and is accused of failing to report the alleged child abuse to law enforcement or human services officials.

Boulder police arrested Vinelife youth pastor Jason Allen Roberson, 35, on Sept. 4 and charged him with one count of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust; one count of sexual exploitation of a child and one count of unlawful sexual contact. After reviewing the case, the Boulder County District Attorney added one count of stalking.

The victim, who is now 24 years old, is also a former church staff member. She told police the “inappropriate” relationship with the youth pastor began when she was 15 years old and continued for seven years. She said she “trusted (Roberson) as an authority figure and spiritual guide, and felt uncomfortable disclosing the relationship to others,” police said.

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VERMONT
WCAX

By Keith McGilvery
BURLINGTON, Vt. –
Pomp and circumstance welcomed Bishop Salvatore Matano to Vermont in 2005 when the Vatican tapped him to lead the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington.

“Bishop Matano is very capable person and certainly it is not unexpected that he might be tapped and chosen to go elsewhere,” said Professor Edward Mahoney, a Religious Studies Professor at St. Michaels College.

Mahoney says Matano has been a strong leader. “I think his strengths are pastoral and also in management in terms of getting a diocese organized and functioning properly,” he said.

But others have been less than impressed with 67-year-old’s time as Bishop. “He came in well after the sexual abuse had come to an end, however he wasn’t willing to take the steps that we really believed were needed going forward,” said Jerry O’Neill, a lawyer who was involved in settling roughly 50 priest sex abuse cases involving the diocese. Those cases forced the church to sell much of its property and fork over millions to victims.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

[the court decision]

by Laura Yuen, Minnesota Public Radio
November 6, 2013

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Supreme Court has denied a new trial to a Roman Catholic priest convicted of third-degree criminal conduct for having sexual relations with a parishioner he was counseling.

The decision today reverses an earlier ruling from an appeals court that granted a new trial for Christopher Wenthe, who had a relationship with a young woman when he working at a St. Paul parish.

Minnesota law prohibits clergy members from having sexual contact with people who seek their counsel.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said the Supreme Court decision ensures that police and prosecutors can charge clergy who abuse their position of power to sexually prey on the vulnerable.

“There is a huge, huge power imbalance between that priest or clergy person, and that person seeking spiritual guidance and counsel,” Choi said.

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ROME
National Catholic Register

by Edward Pentin Wednesday, November 06, 2013

One of the most senior leaders of the Legionaries of Christ has resigned from the order, saying he “did not have the necessary energy to confront the challenges” of his position.

Fr. Deomar De Guedes LC, second general counsellor of the order, submitted his resignation to Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, pontifical delegate of the Legionaries of Christ.

Cardinal De Paolis has been leading a reform of the Legion since revelations of grave abuse and corruption by its founder, Father Marcial Maciel, came to light.

In a statement, the order said Fr. De Guedes “had asked the pontifical delegate to be exclaustrated from the Legion, but Cardinal De Paolis granted him permission to resign “extra domum,” meaning Fr. De Guedes may reside outside of the religious community for one year.”

“The cardinal asked Fr. De Guedes to reevaluate his situation during that year in light of the new superiors who will be elected in the next General Chapter,” the statement added.

The General Chapter will begin on January 8, 2014 – a meeting the Legion says will be “an important step in the Legion’s renewal and purification process called for by Pope Benedict XVI and confirmed by Pope Francis.”

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PERU
Peru this Week

By Rachel Chase

Priest Luis Alejandro Bazalar García of Ayacucho allegedly raped a 17-year-old victim.

The Catholic Church in Ayacucho has faced another setback in the wake of accusations against priest Luis Alejandro Bazalar García, who has been accused of sexually abusing a young congregant.

According to Peru21, the accusations have split the church in Ayacucho.

Javier Obón, the general vicar of Ayacucho, told Peru21 that the allegations were nothing more than “tall tales” made up by the victim’s family.

However, archbishop of Ayacucho Salvador Piñeiro has openly stated that Bazalar is facing church disciplinary procedures and said that he had already collaborated with the Ayacucho prosecutor’s office on the case as well.

Peru21 reported on Oct. 31 that Bazalar had traveled to Lima on the advice of his lawyer.

The Peruvian Catholic church has been rocked by a number of scandals in recent months. In September, accusations against Gabino Miranda, the now ex-auxiliary bishop of Ayacucho, came to light, claiming that Miranda inappropriately touched a young confessor at his parish. He denied any wrongdoing, but was defrocked and a criminal investigation was initiated.

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MISSOURI
Columbia Missourian

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

BY ALAN SCHER ZAGIER/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TROY — The St. Louis archdiocese asked a judge Wednesday to dismiss a lawsuit accusing the archbishop of failing to report child sexual abuse allegations against a priest he lived with and apparently mentored.

Attorney Gerard Noce, who represents Archbishop Robert Carlson and the archdiocese, told Circuit Judge Chris Kunza Mennemeyer that the lawsuit filed by the family of the alleged victim fails to spell out how Carlson and the priest’s other superiors acted improperly. She told attorneys for the two sides she would review the request and scheduled another hearing for next June.

The priest, the Rev. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang, was charged in June 2012 with first-degree child endangerment and witness tampering. His trial had been scheduled to begin last month but was postponed. Jiang, who has pleaded not guilty, was placed on administrative leave. His attorney, Paul D’Agrosa, didn’t respond to a phone message Wednesday seeking comment.

Prosecutors allege that on several occasions earlier in 2012, Jiang had improper sexual contact with an underage girl in a church rectory parking lot and at her family’s home in Old Monroe, about 45 miles north of St. Louis. She was 16 years old when the alleged abuse began.

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MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

The Associated Press – ST. PAUL, Minn.

The Minnesota Supreme Court has upheld a state law that deems it a felony for clergy members to have sex with people they’re advising on spiritual matters.

The court on Wednesday reversed a state Court of Appeals ruling granting a new trial to Catholic priest Christopher Wenthe (WHEN’-thee).

In 2011, Wenthe was convicted of third-degree criminal sexual conduct for having sex with a woman when she sought spiritual counseling.

In a two-part ruling, the Supreme Court ruled 4-1 that Minnesota’s clergy sexual conduct statute is constitutional, and that religion was not excessively entangled in Wenthe’s conviction.

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NORTH CAROLINE
WCNC

by STUART WATSON / NBC Charlotte

Posted on November 4, 2013 at 11:31 PM

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Elevation Church, led by pastor Steven Furtick, has doubled its average weekly offering in the last two years to more than a half-million dollars a week, and plans to open up to five new locations costing up to $86 million in the Charlotte area, three of which it has not made public.

Those numbers are revealed in a confidential internal report obtained by the NBC Charlotte I-Team. The chief financial officer of the church confirms the numbers are accurate, but says they represent potential deals which may not materialize.

Elevation is the largest megachurch in North Carolina, and one of the fastest-growing churches in the United States. The church has kept its finances secret even from donors, asking staff and some volunteers to sign a confidentiality agreement which threatens to sue them if they disclose internal numbers.

The NBC Charlotte I-Team is withholding some numbers contained in the confidential report to minimize any harm to Elevation’s pending real estate deals.

Elevation’s founding principles called “The Code” state “we are all about the numbers”, and emphasize a reliance on numbers as metrics for growth and success. In one promotional film for Elevation, congregation members identify themselves by the “number” of the order in which they joined the church.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC/POLAND
Dominican Today

Warsaw.- Poland’s Attorney General confirmed Wednesday that it has received from Dominican authorities around 650 documents in the case of ousted Vatican envoy in the country, Joszef Wesolowski, and Polish priest Wojciech Gil, both accused of pedophilia.

Przemyslaw Nowak, spokesman for the Poland Office of the Prosecutor said that documents, including testimony from alleged victims, psychological evaluations and investigation results have already been handed to translators.

The Polish officials however didn’t specify whether the documents from Santo Domingo request Gil’s extradition, who’s currently in Poland.

In a press conference, Nowak said they’ll await the translation of the documents, and noted that there’s no extradition treaty between Poland and Dominican Republic.

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NORTH CAROLINA
Watch Keep

An investigative reporter at NBC Charlotte, Stuart Watson, has done a series on the Southern Baptist megachurch, Elevation Church, and its pastor, Steven Furtick’s 16,000 square foot home currently being built in North Carolina. In the most recent report, the NBC Charlotte I-team obtained a confidential Elevation report:

NBC Charlotte obtains confidential Elevation report

Elevation Church, led by pastor Steven Furtick, has doubled its average weekly offering in the last two years to more than a half-million dollars a week, and plans to open up to five new locations costing up to $86 million in the Charlotte area. view full article

Elevation is the largest megachurch in North Carolina, and one of the fastest-growing churches in the United States. The church has kept its finances secret even from donors, asking staff and some volunteers to sign a confidentiality agreement which threatens to sue them if they disclose internal numbers.

Elevation’s founding principles called “The Code” state “we are all about the numbers”, and emphasize a reliance on numbers as metrics for growth and success. In one promotional film for Elevation, congregation members identify themselves by the “number” of the order in which they joined the church.

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ROM
Pisaversteher.com

[Summary: Clergy abuse victim Norbert Denef has been hositalized following a protest in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. He was demonstrating for establishment of a foundation for break the silence on abuse and laid down to rest. He was taken away to the hospital. The demonstration was quickly broken up.]

Veröffentlicht am 2013/11/06 von robertcaesar
Missbrauchsopfer Norbert Denef ist nach einer Protestaktion auf dem Peterplatz in einer Mischung aus Polizei- und Notarzteinsatz ins Krankenhaus gebracht worden. Denef hatte für die Einrichtung einer Stiftung zum Schweigenbrechen demonstriert – und zwar schweigend

PISAVERSTEHER AUS ROM

Wer auf dem Petersplatz in Rom zu lange das falsche Schild hochhält, wir schnell abgeführt. Insofern hatte Norbert Denef, prominentes deutsches Missbrauchsopfer und Vorsitzender des Vereins „Netzwerk Betroffene“, Glück, dass ihn ein halbes Dutzend Carabinieri und ein Notarzt erst nach drei Stunden abtransportierten. Denef hatte zuvor – schweigend und nur mit einem großen Foto von sich als 9jährigem – bei einer Generalaudienz des Papstes für eine Stiftung „Schweigenbrechen“ demonstriert. Das nahm fast niemand der rund 50.000 Gläubigen zur Kenntnis – trotz (oder wegen) mehrfacher Vorbeifahrt des Papstes Franziskus in seinem offenen Papamobil.

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GERMANY
NetzwerkB

Dear members and friends of netzwerkB,
dear supporting members of the printed media, radio and tv,
dear supporters in politics,

On 6 November 1993, I broke my silence at a gathering of my family of origin with my two perpetrators present.

20 years of trying to come to terms with all of this – time for new roads to be explored!

On 13 May 2013 I wrote the following letter to Pope Francis:

Act of Reconciliation – N. 555.086

Your Holiness,

I am writing to you today in regards to the letter of 27 April 2004 (Schreiben vom 27. April 2004) which I received from the state secretary, section 1 General Affairs, with the No. 555.086. This letter was an answer by Pope John Paul II to my letter of 9 December 2003 (Schreiben vom 9. Dezember 2003). Today I would like to ask your holiness for an act of reconciliation.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Schwigen

November 6, 2013 · von nordenef · in Schweigen, Stiften
Norbert Denef auf dem Petersplatz in Rom

Denef demonstrierte schweigend für die Einrichtung einer Stiftung >>> “Schweigen-Brechen”. Siehe auch gesonderten Bericht auf pisaversteher.com

+++ 14:30 Uhr +++ Norbert Denef wird aus dem Krankenhaus entlassen; es geht ihm gut

+++ 13:30 Uhr +++ Denef wird zum Gesundheitscheck ins Krankenhaus Spirito Santo gebracht. Jedenfalls teilt das die Erste Hilfe auf dem Petersplatz mit

+++ 12:54 Uhr +++ Die Polizei entdeckt Norbert Denef und transportiert ihn ab. Alle Filmaufahmen werden sofort unterbunden. Keiner spricht Englisch. Der Kameramann des MDR wird ermahnt, er soll sein Aufnahmegerät sofort ausmachen

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday November 6, 2013

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )

St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson didn’t get what he wanted this morning – the immediate dismissal of perhaps the most serious clergy sex abuse and cover up suit the archdiocese has ever faced. It charges Fr. Joseph Jiang of molesting a girl as recently as 2012. And it charges Carlson with attempted witness tampering.

[KSDK]

We’re grateful that the judge is taking this case under advisement. Carlson faces six charges in the suit. If even one of them is upheld, this brave family may get to expose the corruption and complicity of top Catholic officials in court.

Despite more than a decade of pledges to be “open” about clergy sex crimes, Carlson still refuses to say

–where Fr. Jiang is now,
–how he met Fr. Jiang,
–why he and Fr. Jiang moved from city to city,
–why Fr. Jiang had a room in Carlson’s home,
–whether Fr. Jiang admitted his guilt to him,
–whether he called the victim’s parents, and
–whether he tried to get Fr. Jiang’s $20,000 check from the victims’ family.

(The latter three or four allegations are included in the civil suit against Carlson.)

(Carlson DID call the allegations against the archdiocese “baseless,” but that’s a legal term. Carlson has never addressed questions about his involvement in the Fr. Jiang case and never flatly denied that he called the victim’s mom and asked if she would give him Fr. Jiang’s $20,000 check.)

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NEW YORK/VERMONT
National Catholic Reporter

Catholic News Service | Nov. 6, 2013

WASHINGTON Pope Francis has named Bishop Salvatore Matano of Burlington, Vt., to head the diocese of Rochester, N.Y.

He succeeds Bishop Matthew Clark, who retired in September 2012.

The appointment was announced Wednesday in Washington by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

November is Black Catholic History Month, and each day NCR will profile a different black saint.

You can receive daily email alerts to learn more about these holy men and women. Sign up here for our Black Catholic Saints list.
Matano has headed the statewide Burlington diocese since 2005.

The Rochester diocese is made up of 12 counties, covering a 7,100-square-mile area. It has a Catholic population of more than 311,000 out of a total population of 1.5 million.

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NEW YORK
Webster Post

By Linda Quinlan
Posted Nov. 6, 2013

The community had its first chance to “meet” the ninth Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester this morning.

Pope Francis has named Bishop Salvatore R. Matano, who has been the Bishop of Vermont since 2005, the ninth bishop of the Rochester diocese. The diocese covers a 12-county region, including Monroe County, in central and western New York.

At a press conference this morning, Wednesday, Nov. 6, Bishop Matano talked about blessing a sugar farm in Vermont.

“Was it all idyllic? No,” he answered, noting that he also dealt with “the sexual abuse crisis … and it has been a very painful time.”

Bishop Matano said his first priority will be “to bring people back to Mass.”

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NEW JERSEY
Whispers in the Loggia

Amid these long, strange months in the nation’s seventh-largest church, it wouldn’t be an ecclesial event in Newark if there weren’t protestors.

And so – even if the demonstrations outside yesterday’s Welcome Mass for Coadjutor-Archbishop Bernie Hebda were mostly the customary troupe of 50 guitar-strumming, drum-beating, full-out-rejoicing Neocat singers – three advocates for victim-survivors were likewise on the scene, toting full-body, all-caps signs blaring that incumbent Archbishop John “Myers must still go” and urging “Hebda: ignore Myers.”

If nothing else, that even the toughest crowd of all hasn’t demonized the new arrival – at least, not yet – underscores the extraordinary goodwill and high hopes invested in the figure the locals have dubbed “AB2.” But now that he’s wheels-down and taking anew to life in a college dorm, the question becomes how he’ll handle what archdiocesan officials maintain will be a three-year apprenticeship of one of American Catholicism’s most complex outposts.

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MINNESOTA
MinnPost

By Brian Lambert | 11/05/13
Their most avowed enemies couldn’t generate worse press … Tony Kennedy of the Strib reports: “The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis was at the forefront of extensive lobbying against efforts to expand the time limit for lawsuits by victims of childhood sexual abuse, according to a document obtained by the Star Tribune. An internal accounting analysis prepared by the archdiocese shows that the lobbying association known as the Minnesota Religious Council received more than $800,000 from the Catholic Church during a seven-year period ending in the middle of 2008. A similar analysis was not available for subsequent years, but state lobbying records show the council spent more than $425,000 on lobbyists from 2006 through 2012.” Add that to the cash they spent on trying to defeat gay marriage and pretty soon you’re talking real money.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2013

Statement by SNAP leader Megan Peterson ( 218-689-9049, Survivor19@live.com )

A law banning clergy from sexual contact with congregants has been upheld by the Minnesota Supreme Court. This is a victory for every man and woman who has been sexually exploited by priests, ministers, rabbis and other clerics.

[Pioneer Press]

We are grateful that Minnesota’s highest court has upheld a law criminalizing the sexual exploitation of adults by clergy.

At the same time, we are saddened that Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt let one of his priests (Fr. Christopher Wenthe) challenge this law.

It is inherently problematic when clergy have any sexual contact with congregants. There can be no true “consent” given the power difference between the individuals.

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MINNESOTA
KARE

[the court decision]

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Minnesota Supreme Court issued a ruling Wednesday that upholds the conviction of a priest on third degree sexual assault.

The decision means Christopher Wenthe will not receive a new trial on charges he repeatedly had sexual relations with a 21-year-old parishioner he was allegedly counseling.

The priest admitted having a relationship with the woman, who was struggling with bulimia and past sexual abuse, but said it did not happen while he was giving her counsel. Wenthe was an assistant priest at Nativity Catholic Church in St. Paul during the time of the sexual relationship.

Wenthe was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to 57 months in prison, but was granted a new trial by the Minnesota Court of Appeals in 2012 when the Minnesota Court of Appeals found that the religious evidence used against Wenthe violated his constitutional rights.

In today’s ruling the Supreme Court disagreed 4-1, saying that a law banning sexual encounters between a member of the clergy and someone he or she is offering counsel does not excessively entangle religion in the legal process.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The St. Louis archdiocese is seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit by the family of a teenage girl who claims Archbishop Robert Carlson failed to prevent her molestation by a priest with whom he lived in the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica.

The Rev. Joseph Jiang is accused in eastern Missouri’s Lincoln County of leaving a $20,000 check atop a car belonging to the girl’s family after the alleged improper sexual contact. The lawsuit says Carlson asked for the check’s return. The family instead reported the exchange to police.

A motion by the archdiocese to dismiss the lawsuit was scheduled to be heard Wednesday in a Troy courtroom.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

[the court decision]

Article by: ABBY SIMONS , Star Tribune Updated: November 6, 2013

The ruling means the Rev. Christopher Wenthe will not receive a new trial for having sex with a

A Roman Catholic priest convicted of a felony for his relationship with a female parishioner 10 years ago does not deserve a new trial, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, upholding a state law that deems it a felony for clergy members to have sex with people they’re advising on spiritual matters.

In a two-part ruling, the court ruled 4-1 that the state’s clergy sexual conduct statute is constitutional, and that religion was not excessively entangled in the Rev. Christopher Wenthe’s 2011 criminal sexual conduct conviction.The ruling reverses a Minnesota Court of Appeals order last year that granted Wenthe a new trial, when they found that the religious evidence used against him violated his constitutional rights under the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which holds that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

Justice Alan Page dissented on both counts, reasoning that the state law is unconstitutional. Justices Christopher Dietzen and Wilhelmina Wright did not take part in the ruling.

Wenthe was convicted in Ramsey County of third-degree criminal sexual conduct “during the course of a meeting” for a sex act that occurred with a 21-year-old woman in the rectory of Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Church in St. Paul in 2003. Wenthe did not dispute that the two had an 18-month relationship, but denied that it occurred while he was providing spiritual aid and comfort. Wenthe had served eight months of a 57-month sentence when he was granted a new trial. Prosecutors appealed and the high court heard arguments this summer.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

[the court decision]

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 11/06/2013

A former Nativity of Our Lord priest who became sexually involved with a 21-year-old penitent is not entitled to a new trial, the Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled.

The high court upheld the state’s clergy sex statute, which makes it a felony for a priest or minister to have sexual contact with a person “during the course of a meeting in which the (victim) sought or received religious or spiritual advice, aid, or comfort from the (clergy member) in private.”

Rev. Christopher Wenthe was convicted in a Ramsey County District Court trial on one count of criminal sexual conduct.

He admitted during trial that he had sex with a 21-year-old member of his parish. She testified that she told Wenthe about her struggles with an eating disorder and previous sexual abuse. He agreed to serve as her confessor. She said Wenthe exploited her vulnerability and her trust in him as a priest.

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MINNESOTA
TheMediaReport

Madeleine Baran and Tom Scheck of Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) recently trumpeted the lurid story that a computer owned in 2004 by a Catholic priest from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis contained e-mail messages that “may have included inappropriate correspondence” with a “possible minor,” thus suggesting that the priest might be a child molester.

Indeed, any story about a Catholic priest committing a crime with a minor is not only troubling but big news, and the duo’s eye-opening story received wide media attention.

However, as it turns out, the priest, Rev. Jonathan Shelley, a very popular cleric in his region, was simply corresponding with a longtime friend who was not a minor at all.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

The president of the Yeshiva Centre has told Daniel “Gug” Hayman he is not welcome at the syngagogue following confirmed reports that he lead prayers on the same day he was granted bail on charges of indecent assault against two young boys in the 1980s.

Tzedek, an advocacy group focusing on child sex abuse, issued the following statement:

“This morning Tzedek received an anonymous phone call from a concerned member of the Sydney Yeshiva community stating that last night Daniel “Gug” Hayman, soon after his release on bail, went to Sydney’s Yeshiva Centre and led the evening services (as a cantor) in their main synagogue. We have now been able to confirm this with a Yeshiva congregant who was present during these services. Apparently Mr Hayman led the second, smaller service.

It should be noted that Mr Hayman recently lost his mother and there is a special prayer (Kaddish) that mourners are required to say during services for one year (and on other special occasions). However, there is no obligation to lead the services – this is only a custom within mainly the ultra-Orthodox community. There is also no obligation for these prayers to be conducted in a synagogue – they may be conducted anywhere where there are ten Jews (a Minyan).

We believe that everyone should be given the opportunity to adhere to their religious beliefs and practices, but questions must be asked. Importantly, how is it that Mr Hayman was given this honour on the day he was released from prison – and within the same institution that the offences were alleged to have been committed and in light of the allegations that the leadership were themselves involved in a cover-up? It is also astounding that so many members of this congregation felt that it was befitting Mr Hayman to be their conduit to God through this prayer service.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian Jewish News

A FORMER member of Sydney’s Jewish community has been charged with offences relating to child sexual abuse within the community.

Daniel “Gug” Hayman was arrested on Monday and charged with two counts of gross indecency by a male with a male under 18 years.

It is alleged that Hayman, who was a volunteer and director of Yeshiva in Sydney, assaulted two boys, aged 14 and 16 between 1985 and 1986.

Hayman, who is now 49 years old and lives in Los Angeles, was released on strict bail conditions on Tuesday. He has been permitted to attend synagogue services because he was visiting Australia following the recent death of his mother. …

Hayman is the first person to be charged in relation to the police’s investigation into historic child sexual abuse allegations in the Sydney community.

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POLSKA
Natemat

[with copy in English of an Interpol document on Gil.]

[Summary: The Polish prosecutor genernal’s office has received materials from the Dominican Republic government regarding alleged allegations that Father Wojciech Gil and Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski abused minors in the Dominican Republic.]

Polska Prokuratura Generalna otrzymała od dominikańskich władz materiały dotyczące afery pedofilskiej, w którą mieli być zamieszani ks. Wojciech Gil oraz abp Józef Wesołowski. Do Polski trafił m.in. dysk twardy, który został już przekazany biegłemu. Po wstępnym przejrzeniu dokumentów Prokuratura Generalna poinformowała, że mają one “walor procesowy”.

Przekazana Polsce materiały trafiły do Prokuratury Okręgowej w Warszawie, która prowadzi śledztwo ws. domniemanego wykorzystywania dominikańskich dzieci przez ks. Gila oraz abp. Wesołowskiego. Rzecznik Prokuratury Okręgowej w Warszawie prok. Przemysław Nowak poinformował, że dokumenty zostały lub niebawem zostaną przekazane tłumaczom, a ci przełożą je z hiszpańskiego na polski.

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VERMONT/NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2013

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )

Vermont Catholic Bishop Salvatore Matano has been promoted to head the Rochester diocese. We’re disappointed that Pope Francis has promoted a bureaucrat with a terrible record on children’s safety.

[Whispers in the Loggia]

In 2006, Matano’s diocese was one of just two in America to have been found in violation of the US bishops weak and vague national abuse policy because Matano refused to ensure that adequate abuse prevention training was provided to all his staff, as the policy requires.

[BishopAccountability.org]

For eight years, he refused to list Vermont’s predator priests on his website or house and supervise them, two simple, proven abuse prevention steps that we asked him to take.

[SNAP]

[SNAP]

Matano’s also been accused of financial misdeeds. In 2009, two lawsuits – by 27 alleged victims – were filed charging that Matano “transferred assets into separate entities to make it harder for victims of priest sexual abuse who have sued the church to collect monetary damages in their cases,” according to the Burlington VT Free Press. The newspaper noted that in 2006, “the diocese transferred $3,819,000 to a church pension fund and another $3,704,000 was placed in a newly created trust for Vermont Catholic Charities.”

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2013

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

Today, Archbishop Robert Carlson is trying to have the most troubling child sex abuse and cover up lawsuit in the archdiocese’s history tossed out of court. Shame on him.

[San Francisco Chronicle]

The suit charges Carlson with attempted witness tampering. It involves Fr. Joseph Jiang’s alleged abuse of a girl that ended in the summer of 2012. Fr. Jiang reportedly left a $20,000 check for the victim’s parents after they learned and confronted him about his crimes.

The Associated Press reports that it is Carlson, not Jiang, who’s trying today to have the case tossed out.

If Carlson did nothing wrong, why not let the suit proceed? Instead, Carlson’s trying to hide behind technicalities. If he wins, there will always be a cloud of doubt over him. So if he’s innocent, wouldst it be better for him to show this through a trial?

The St. Louis archdiocese has faced at least 100 child sex abuse and cover up lawsuits (dating back to the late 1980s or early 1990s).

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

One was convicted of stealing from churches
The other was ousted from parish last Friday
Sex abuse victims want bishop to be more “open”
Neither, as best SNAP can tell, faces child sex allegations

For immediate release: Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2013

For more information: David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP Director (314) 566-9790cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is challenging Kansas City’s Catholic bishop over two priests – one who was convicted of burglarizing churches and another who was recently ousted from his parish.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are urging Bishop Robert Finn to be “honest with parishioners and the public” about the two clerics:

–Fr. Glen Gardner, who now works at St. Patrick’s Oratory in Kansas City (806 Cherry, 816 474 8995, http://www.institute-christ-king.org/kansascity/), was convicted on felony theft/burglary charges in Wisconsin in 2000.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Tom Roberts | Nov. 6, 2013 NCR Today

Pope John Paul II’s former secretary, in a recently published book, defends his late boss’s promotion of the now-infamous Marciel Maciel Degollado by saying that the pope knew “absolutely nothing” about him because of a lack of communication among the curia.

According to a CNS report by Cindy Wooden, Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, personal secretary to the late John Paul for 39 years, said in his book, Hi Vissuto con un Santo (I Lived with a Saint), that the pope should not have met with and praised the founder of the ultra conservative and secretive order, the Legion of Christ, in 2004. ”When the Holy Father met him, he knew nothing, absolutely nothing. For him, he [Maciel] was still the founder of a great religious order and that’s it. No one had told him anything, not even about the rumors going around.” The ignorance, he further explains “was the consequence of a still extremely bureaucratic structure” in which there was little communication.

I have not read the book, which is currently available only in Italian. Perhaps Dziwisz provides more explanation and context in the book, but on the face of the information provided in the CNS story, which gives the impression of a single meeting between the two in 2004, a great deal of history is left out.

The record on Maciel, who, according to the Vatican, abused “more than 20 but fewer than 100” of his former seminarians and who, it was ultimate discovered, had at least three children by two different women, is voluminous. Much of it was generated by journalist Jason Berry for NCR.

But the record extends back to initial stories by Berry and Gerald Renner, then a religion reporter for the Hartford Courant. In February, 1997, the two published an extensively documented story in the Courant, based on on-the-record interviews with nine former seminarians or ex-Legion priests, detailing a history of sexual abuse of seminarians by Maciel. Apparently the news either did not get to the pope or he chose to ignore the allegations.

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MINNESOTA
MinnPost

By Eric S. Fought

As a former senior-level political staffer and as someone who has advised leaders of organizations large and small in the midst of crises, I have often been forced to offer counsel that was difficult for the leader to hear. In some cases, the damage that has been done by their actions (or lack thereof) can be repaired; at other times the damage is far too great and the best path forward is for that leader to step aside.

While I am a member of a parish of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, I in no way serve as an adviser to John Nienstedt, its archbishop. However, if I did, I would advise him to take swift action for the benefit of the organization that he has been called to lead.

That swift action would include his resignation, and his own willingness to cooperate fully with both civil and ecclesial authorities.

If we are to be fully honest with ourselves, we would acknowledge that if John Nienstedt served in a leadership capacity with any organization other than the Roman Catholic Church, such action would have been taken by now. However, the archbishop does serve the church, an organization with a long, painful and unfortunate history of covering up and enabling the criminal behavior of a segment of its clergy — a history that must come to an end.

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CANADA
Le Soleil

Click here for the story.

[Summary: It took much of the day but American priest Thomas Doyle was finally recognized as an expert witness in canon law at the trial of the Redemptorists. Lawyers for the congregation unsuccessfully challenged the credibility of Fr. Doyle and claimed he was biased. By late afternoon on Tuesday, Judge Claude Bouchard agreed to recognize Fr. Doyle, whose curriculum vitae was nine pages long, as an expert in canon law. He can comment on structure and functioning of the Catholic Church as well as procedures of the church in sexual abuse cases.]

ISABELLE MATHIEU
Le Soleil
(Québec) Il aura fallu y passer la journée, mais le prêtre américain Thomas Doyle a finalement été reconnu comme témoin-expert en droit canonique au procès des Rédemptoristes. Les avocats de la congrégation ont attaqué en vain la crédibilité du prêtre catholique, le qualifiant de partial.

En fin d’après-midi, mardi, le juge Claude Bouchard a accepté de reconnaître le père Thomas Doyle comme expert en droit canonique. L’homme, dont le curriculum vitae tient sur neuf pages, pourra donc livrer ses commentaires sur la structure et le fonctionnement de l’Église catholique ainsi que sur les procédures de l’Église dans les cas d’abus sexuels.

Alors que Frank Tremblay et ses avocats souhaitaient qu’il puisse témoigner globalement comme expert dans les dommages spirituels, le juge s’est rendu aux arguments de la défense et demande de limiter la preuve psychologique, déjà couverte par d’autres témoins experts. «Mais du fait de son expérience auprès des victimes, il peut accorder un éclairage à la cour», a estimé le juge Claude Bouchard.

Depuis le milieu des années 1980, Thomas Doyle a rencontré des milliers de victimes de prêtres et témoigné comme expert ou agi comme consultant dans plus de 2000 causes aux États-Unis, au Canada, au Royaume-Uni, en Irlande, en Nouvelle-Zélande, en Belgique, en Australie et en Israël. Conférencier et auteur, Doyle a également été aumônier militaire.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Nov. 6, 2013

WASHINGTON On an otherwise dull agenda for the fall assembly of the American hierarchy, one item has been the subject of much discussion inside and outside the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Following a three-year presidency of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the bishops are set to elect a new chief and a spate of other leaders.

The discussion question is basic: Who’s going to lead this group?

More to the point: Will the new conference leadership maintain the status quo, allowing the conference to be, in the words of one former staffer, “defined by what they oppose”? Or will the leadership, in the words of a former conference president, “embrace the tone and the style of Pope Francis”?

Or, in the words of another former staffer, will the new leadership embrace dialogue and collaboration, or will it “hunker down and preserve and protect”?

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RUSSIA
Interfax

St. Petersburg, November 6, Interfax – Gleb Grozovsky, the former senior priest of the Church of John the Warrior, St. Petersburg Metropole of the Russian Orthodox Church, who is accused of molesting two children, has denied his guilt

“The case materials are full of emotions and there is not a single piece of evidence of my guilt.

According to the parents, they were threatened and psychologically pressured to accuse me of all these abominable things. The mothers were pressured to make their accusations. Many women gave in to emotions now they realize that they have been deceived and they don’t know what to do,” Grozovsky said on a social networking site on Wednesday.

Grozovsky said only witnesses for the prosecution have now been questioned by the investigators. “They haven’t questioned any camp counselors or the parents of the children who were in the camp, whereas there were educators in the camps who came there with their children and saw everything with their own eyes, plus I had my family and my four children with me,” Grozovsky said.

The priest said he is now on a visit to a center for alcohol and drug-dependent people in Israel at the blessing of the bishop.

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RUSSIA
GlobalPost

Russian investigators on Wednesday charged an advisor with football club Zenit, who is an ordained priest, with sexually assaulting two underage girls while at a religious summer camp.

Investigators said they are looking for 34-year-old Gleb Grozovsky, who works as an advisor to Maksim Mitrofanov, the general director of FC Zenit of Saint Petersburg and is now at large.

The Russian Investigative Committeee said it believed Grozovsky, an Orthodox priest and former rector of a parish near Saint Petersburg, has “sexually assaulted a nine-year-old and 12-year-old girls”.

Grozovsky, 34, was with the girls on the Greek island of Kos as part of an Orthodox summer camp in June, and molested them in a hotel, a statement said.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 6 November 2013 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father: …

– appointed Bishop Salvatore Ronald Matano of Burlington, U.S.A., as bishop of Rochester (area 18,400, population 1,580,000, Catholics 461,297, priests 235, permanent deacons 145, religious 148), U.S.A. Bishop Matano was born in Providence, U.S.A. in 1946, was ordained to the priesthood in 1971 and received episcopal ordination in 2005.

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RUSSIA
Interfax

St. Petersburg, November 6, Interfax – The Investigations Committee’s Investigations Department for St. Petersburg has opened a criminal case against priest Gleb Grozovsky, who is suspected of child molestation.

A criminal case has been opened and an investigation is underway, the press service for the Investigations Committee’s Investigations Department for St. Petersburg told Interfax.

According to media reports, Grozovsky was until recently the senior priest of the Church of John the Warrior in the village of Maloye Verevo, Gatchina district, and also deputy chairman of the diocese department for youth affairs of the St. Petersburg Diocese. However, he left his posts in mid-October and is now abroad.

According to some media reports, Grozovsky is an adviser to the general director of the St. Petersburg football club Zenit and has worked with the children’s village SOS, which is under the care of prominent footballer Andrey Arshavin.

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RUSSIA
RIA Novosti

MOSCOW, November 6 (RIA Novosti) – Russian investigators said Wednesday that an Orthodox priest with links to St. Petersburg’s Zenit football club is suspected of sexually abusing two children during a holiday trip to a Greek island.

Law enforcement officials say they have put Russian village priest Gleb Grozovsky on an international wanted list over allegations that he abused two underage girls at an Orthodox summer camp earlier this year.

Grozovsky, 34, is suspected of abusing the two girls, aged nine and 12, in June at a hotel on the territory of the Philadelphia Orthodox travel club on the Greek island of Kos. He also committed “a range of similar crimes in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region,” the Investigative Committee said in a statement.

The clergyman, who formerly served at a village church in the Leningrad Region, was identified by the Investigative Committee as an adviser to Zenit’s general director.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A retired Catholic brother who left Australia to live in Rome has been charged with indecently assaulting Sydney schoolboys during the 1970s.

His arrest comes after a police investigation into allegations that four 12-year-old boys were assaulted by a teacher at schools in Strathfield and Lidcombe, or while on camp at Dural.

The alleged assaults occurred between 1972 and 1981.

The 75-year-old was arrested at Strathfield on Tuesday and appeared in court charged with four counts of indecent assault on a male.

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AUSTRALIA
Northern Rivers Echo

A RETIRED Catholic brother is the latest clergy member to be arrested over historic child sex offences in NSW.

Police allege that between 1972-81, four young boys were abused by a teacher at schools and at a camp in Sydney’s west.

Investigations into a 72-year-old suspect, who now lives in Rome, began in June this year.

Detectives swooped on the man while he was in Sydney on Tuesday.

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AUSTRALIA
Telegraph

LOCAL police have charged a retired Catholic brother over the alleged historical indecent assaults of school children in Dural and Sydney’s inner west.

Between 1972 and 1981, four boys – all aged 12 at the time- were allegedly indecently assaulted while on camp at Dural, or at schools in Strathfield and Lidcombe.

In June 2013, police from Kuring-Gai Local Area Command were alerted to the alleged incidents and commenced an investigation.

Following inquiries, a 75-year-old man was arrested at Strathfield just before 9.30am on Tuesday.

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AUSTRALIA
New South Wales Police Force

Retired Catholic brother charged with historical indecent assaults of Sydney school children

Wednesday, 06 November 2013

Police have charged a retired Catholic brother over the alleged historical indecent assaults of school children in Sydney’s inner west and north west.

Between 1972 and 1981, four boys – all aged 12 – were allegedly indecently assaulted by a teacher at schools in Strathfield and Lidcombe, or while on camp at Dural.

In June 2013, police from Kuring-Gai Local Area Command were alerted to the alleged incidents and commenced an investigation.

Following inquiries, a 75-year-old man was arrested at Strathfield just before 9.30am yesterday (Tuesday 5 November 2013).

The man, a retired Catholic brother who now lives in Rome, was taken to Campsie Police Station where he was charged with four counts of indecent assault on a male.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

Police have charged a retired Catholic religious Brother over the alleged historical indecent assaults of school children in Sydney.

A media release from New South Wales police (on 6 November 2013) says that, between 1972 and 1981, four boys (all aged 12) were allegedly indecently assaulted by a teacher at schools in Strathfield and Lidcombe (in Sydney’s inner-west), or while on camp at Dural (in Sydney’s north-west).

In June 2013, police from Kuring-Gai Local Area Command were alerted to the alleged incidents and commenced an investigation.

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VERMONT/NEW YORK
Whispers in the Loggia

Capping weeks of speculation surrounding Bishop Salvatore Matano, at Roman Noon this Wednesday the Pope named the 67 year-old prelate – head of Vermont’s statewide diocese of Burlington since 2005 – as bishop of Rochester.

In the upstate New York post, the Providence-born, Rome-trained canonist succeeds Bishop Matthew Clark, who led the 320,000-member diocese for 33 years – a length of tenure practically unheard of in recent times – until his retirement was accepted last September, two months after his 75th birthday.

While Rochester under Clark had been an outlier among Northeastern dioceses in its normative embrace of a progressive post-Conciliar ecclesiology, as was universally expected, the incoming bishop comes from a rather different cloth. And much like last week’s appointment of the now Bishop Leonard Blair to the archbishopric of Hartford, the choice of a fairly conservative figure with an extensive background in law and administration will be seen in some quarters as a clash with the prevailing “Francis narrative” on the wider scene.

A longtime veteran of 1 Cathedral Square – the Rhode Island Chancery, where he capped his service as vicar-general – Matano spent two tours of duty as a local aide at the Washington Nunciature before his appointment to Vermont as coadjutor in early 2005. Ordained in Burlington on the very afternoon of B16’s election, much of the bishop’s tenure has been taken up with the legal and financial fallout of scores of clergy sex-abuse lawsuits, the settlements of which have spurred the diocese to sell off extensive swaths of its real estate holdings – including its Chancery – to pay for the claims while avoiding bankruptcy. While a 2010 settlement for 26 suits totaled $17.6 million, the amount of another agreement to close 11 cases earlier this year was not disclosed.

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CANADA
CTV

A former residential school supervisor charged with abusing several students was found guilty in a North Battleford courtroom Tuesday.

72-year-old Paul Leroux was found guilty of eight counts of indecent assault and two counts of gross indecency against several boys who attended Beauval Indian Residential School in the 1960s.

Leroux, who represented himself at the trial inside Battlefords Court of Queen’s Bench, was found not guilty of seven other charges. Discrepancies in witness testimonies were cited as reasons for why Justice Murray Acton dismissed the charges.

Leroux pled not guilty to all charges against him. He shook his head in disagreement as Acton read his decision.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

06 NOVEMBER 2013

MORE than half of the Magdalene Laundries survivors will get more than €50,000 in compensation.

Almost 700 survivors of the Magdalene Laundries have applied for compensation under the scheme being headed up by Mr Justice John Quirke. Based on the information provided so far, 55pc of applicants will receive more than €50,000 each. The cost of the scheme is expected to be €59m.

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CANADA
Canada.com

THE COURIER-ISLANDER NOVEMBER 6, 2013

What happened between 1879 and 1986 has been Canada’s dirty little secret.

Family priests, Indian agents and police officers forcibly took 150,000 aboriginal children, ages seven to 15 from their homes and they were placed in one of about 132 residential schools across Canada. The intent was to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture.

The white culture. To kill the Indian in the child. There are about 80,000 survivors. Only just now is the damage being recognized. Only just now are significant numbers of individuals beginning to talk about their traumatic experiences of physical, sexual, emotional abuse, medical experimentation, starvation, even murder. Only now are many of us hearing about it.

Because what happened was unspeakable.

But now, survivors are speaking.

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CANADA
Canada.com

BY SIAN THOMSON, THE COURIER-ISLANDER NOVEMBER 6, 2013

Carihi teacher Ray Wilson looks at his oldest daughter, who is soon turning five years old, and knows if he lived back when Residential Schools were in existence, now would be the time “they” would be coming for her.

“They” are the Government of Canada who, according to survivors of Residential Schools, aimed to destroy Aboriginal culture by assimilating Aboriginal children into “good Christian Canadians”. Under the Indian Act of 1876, all Aboriginal people were, by legal definition, wards of the state. School administrators of approximately 143 schools were assigned guardianship, which meant they received full parental rights.

Three of those schools were on Vancouver Island. “Imagine your five year old being taken away from you and sent to a school where you would have no contact and likely not see them again,” said Wilson, who is from Cape Mudge and, after graduating with his teaching degree, returned to Carihi to teach.

“What would you have done? Imagine if there were no children anywhere in your community, They were all gone. What would that do to the psyche of the adults there?” he said.

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MISSOURI
San Francisco Chronicle

TROY, Mo. (AP) — The St. Louis archdiocese is seeking dismissal of a lawsuit by the family of a teenage girl claiming Archbishop Robert Carlson failed to prevent her molestation by a priest with whom he lived in the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica.

The Rev. Joseph Jiang is accused in eastern Missouri’s Lincoln County of leaving a $20,000 check atop a car belonging to the girl’s family after the alleged improper sexual contact. The lawsuit says Carlson asked for the check’s return. The family instead reported the exchange to police.

A motion by the archdiocese to dismiss the lawsuit was scheduled to be heard Wednesday in a Troy courtroom.

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UNITED STATES
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) 2013 November General Assembly in Baltimore will be held on November 11-14. You will be able to view the bishops’ actions at the meeting by viewing the live stream or reviewing video-on-demand of the public sessions and reading through the tweets below. You will also find links to related USCCB news releases and coverage from Catholic News Service on this page. Links to the agenda, speeches, votes and other material are posted in the right hand column of this page.

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UNITED STATES
Headlines from the Catholic World

Washington D.C., Nov 6, 2013 / 02:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Ten bishops are nominees to become the next president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at the group’s general assembly to be held in Baltimore Nov. 11-14.

The nominees come from a wide variety of backgrounds. The conference president plays a significant role in coordinating and leading charitable and social work and education, while providing a public face for the Catholic Church in the U.S.

Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond is the first New Orleans native to head the city’s archdiocese, where he had served as an auxiliary bishop from 1997-2000. He is former Bishop of Austin, and has been archbishop of New Orleans since 2009.

The archbishop recently made news for asking Catholic schools in his archdiocese to stop holding Sunday events in order to reduce temptations to neglect faith and family life.

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AUSTRALIA
Armidale Express

By VICTORIA NUGENT Nov. 6, 2013

A DEFROCKED priest facing historic child sex assault charges is expected to stand trial in relation to two of 11 alleged victims.

He faced Armidale Local Court heard today.

Crown prosecutor Peter Woods told the court there was “substantial agreement” in relation to the facts regarding nine of the alleged victims and a plea offer would be made.

“In relation to two victims, there is no agreement and we expect those matters to go to trial,” he said.

Mr Woods said the defence and the Crown were agreed on a number of facts relating to certain charges.

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CANADA
GlobalPost

BATTLEFORD, Sask. – A former supervisor at a Saskatchewan residential school has been found guilty of molesting several students in the 1960s.

Paul Leroux, who is now in his 70s, worked at the Beauval Indian Residential School.

A judge in Battleford court convicted Leroux on 10 of 17 charges involving boys at the school — eight counts of indecent assault and two counts of gross indecency

Leroux, who appeared to be stunned by the conviction, has been taken into custody until sentencing Dec. 5.

Leroux was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1998 for abusing 14 boys and young men at Grollier Hall, a residential school in Inuvik run by the Roman Catholic Church.

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CANADA
Global News

BATTLEFORD, Sask. – A former supervisor at a Saskatchewan residential school has been found guilty of molesting several students in the 1960s.

Paul Leroux, who is now in his 70s, worked at the Beauval Indian Residential School.

A judge in Battleford court convicted Leroux on 10 of 17 charges involving boys at the school – eight counts of indecent assault and two counts of gross indecency

Leroux, who appeared to be stunned by the conviction, has been taken into custody until sentencing Dec. 5.

Leroux was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1998 for abusing 14 boys and young men at Grollier Hall, a residential school in Inuvik run by the Roman Catholic Church.

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CANADA
CBC News

A former residential school worker in northern Saskatchewan has been found guilty of indecently assaulting young boys nearly five decades ago.

Paul Leroux, now 73, was a dormitory supervisor at the Beauval Residential School in the 1950s and 1960s.

He was accused of molesting 14 boys. Reporters in the court house Tuesday reported that the judge on the case found Leroux guilty on ten counts of indecent assault. Queen’s Bench Justice Murray Acton delivered his decision at the Battleford courthouse Tuesday afternoon.

There were 17 charges altogether, including indecent assault and gross indecency. The allegations included sexual touching, oral and anal sex, and bringing boys to his room where they were given alcohol and shown pornography.

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CANADA
StarPhoenix

A former supervisor at a residential school has been found guilty of eight counts of indecent assault and two counts of gross indecency against several students in the 1960s.

Paul Leroux, who is 72, represented himself at his trial, pleading not guilty to assaulting about a dozen former students at the Beauval Indian Residential School in the 1960s.

Justice Murray Acton read the verdict, along with a lengthy explanation, in the Battlefords Court of Queen’s Bench Tuesday. Leroux was found not guilty on seven other charges.

After a brief deliberation, Acton decided Leroux will be held in custody until his sentencing, prompting applause from the crowded gallery in the courtroom.

The accused denied all the charges against him in his final arguments, made last Tuesday.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)

An Idaho Catholic priest working in Missouri has been ousted from his parish. Neither bishops – one in Boise and one in Kansas City – are saying why.

[Idaho Statesman]

We’re disappointed that Catholic officials continue to treat their flock like children and withhold potentially helpful information about the misconduct of priests.

KC Bishop Robert Finn is the only sitting US bishop to have been convicted for endangering kids after hiding evidence of a priest’s possession of child porn from police. So prudent people are skeptical of any claims Finn might make about alleged wrongdoing by clerics.

If Fr. Ramirez stole money, exploited adult parishioners or groomed potentially vulnerable kids, even if there’s no solid proof of a crime, Catholics in Idaho and Kansas City deserve to know this.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MISSOURI
Idaho Statesman

Published: November 5, 2013

By Bill Roberts — broberts@idahostatesman.com

The Rev. Jorge Ramirez, an Idaho Catholic priest serving in the Kansas City-St Joseph Diocese in Missouri, has been relieved of his duties by Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn.

Ramirez had been serving as the priest at Sacred Heart-Guadalupe, a largely Hispanic parish, in Kansas City.

In a letter read to parishioners last weekend, Finn wrote, “My office has received a variety of complaints concerning Fr. Ramirez which I have considered serious enough to merit removing him from his priestly responsibilities at the parish.”

He did not provide specifics details.

Ramirez was removed last Friday. His removal did not involve impropriety with a minor, Finn said.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on November 5, 2013

I am super-duper excited to announce my next book project:

Raising the Armored Kid: A victim and advocate gives you the tools to help your children stay safe from sexual abuse (working title)

This easy-to-read, easy-to-use book will teach parents, caregivers and loved ones common sense strategies that will help children stay safe from child sexual abuse. I include age-specific tools to empower children—from toddlers to adults—and repel predators.

But that is only part of the book. I also explain predatory behaviors such as grooming, give insight into institutional cover-up of abuse, and show how something as simple as changing a parenting style can make the difference in your child’s safety.

Why this book?

I thought back to the more than 10+ years of conversations I have had about my work as an advocate for adult victims of child sexual abuse. The dialogue is always the same: They ask me what I do. I tell them. They ooh and ahh for a minute. Then every parent ASKS THE SAME QUESTION:

“Gosh, what can I do to make sure that it doesn’t happen to my kid?”

That’s when I realized that there is no easy-to-read “toolkit” type of book for parents when it comes to preventing child sexual abuse.There are websites here and there, but most are written by academics who have never been “in the trenches” with abuse victims. Information is difficult or impossible to find on important topics such as grooming, parenting styles, and institutional rot.

Somebody needed to write this book. But who?

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

November 6, 2013

Lucinda Schmidt

Melbourne lawyer Vivian Waller has spent nearly two decades chasing justice for hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. And it’s nowhere near over.

For decades, the scandal of Catholic clergy sexual abuse of children has simmered, flaring up every now and again when yet another paedophile priest is convicted and jailed. Now, the issue is set to reach boiling point as the Catholic Church in Australia faces forensic scrutiny and publicity from three government inquiries into how much its leaders knew, when they knew it – and what they did about it.
On November 15, the Victorian inquiry into the handling of child abuse by religious and other organisations hands its report to the government, after almost 18 months of hearings and submissions.

A few weeks later, on December 9, the federal government’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse begins two weeks of hearings examining the Catholic Church’s national ”Towards Healing” response, set up in 1996 to deal internally with sexual abuse allegations. And, in NSW, an inquiry into the police investigation of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle is due to report by February 28.

The Christian Brothers spent $158,000 on legal costs for Robert Charles Best in his 1996 trial on child sex charges. He was convicted and jailed, but 14 years later, when Best was convicted of a further 27 offences against 11 boys, the Christian Brothers spent another $980,000 on legal fees.
The Christian Brothers spent $158,000 on legal costs for Robert Charles Best in his 1996 trial on child sex charges. He was convicted and jailed, but 14 years later, when Best was convicted of a further 27 offences against 11 boys, the Christian Brothers spent another $980,000 on legal fees.
For Melbourne lawyer Dr Vivian Waller, her wish list from the inquiries is topped by a typically blunt assessment. ”The church should no longer be trusted to deal with this issue in-house.”

Waller has spent the past 19 years chasing justice for hundreds of victims of Catholic clergy abuse. Many of her clients have been abused by Christian Brothers – she files these matters under ”U’ for unchristian. Since she set up her own firm Waller Legal in 2007, she has never advertised her services, but her three-room office in Thornbury has files stacked five deep on tables and the floor.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday November 5, 2013

Statement by Barbara Dorris, Outreach Director, 314-862-7688 SNAPdorris@gmail.com

A long time top Catholic official now says that Pope John Paul II knew “absolutely nothing” about multiple credible child sex abuse reports against Legion of Christ founder Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado.

[National Catholic Reporter]

We find this very hard to believe. And if it’s true, we find this very troubling.

Polish Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz of Krakow was the personal secretary to Pope John Paul II for 39 years and had been ordained to the priesthood by him. In a new book, Dziwisz claims the pontiff should not have met with Maciel.

Again, we just don’t believe this. (The first known letter to Vatican officials about Maciel’s crimes was in the mid-1990s though we suspect there were other reports even earlier. And the first known letter to Pope John Paul II about Maciel was in 1998.)

Among many excuses offered by Catholic prelates about their refusal to take action to protect kids, this is the most common excuse. And it’s the most inexcusable one. Bishop after bishop after bishop claims, over and over again, “I just didn’t know” about clerics who commit and conceal heinous crimes against children. After hearing this claim repeatedly for decades, we just don’t believe that any more.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
The Progressive Catholic Voice

Saturday, November 9, 2013
1:30-2:30 p.m.

Outside the Cathedral of St. Paul
239 Selby Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102

In recent weeks it has become clear that many Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis no longer accept the leadership of Archbishop John C. Nienstedt.

Archbishop Nienstedt has failed to garner the trust of a significant number of Catholics in the archdiocese or lost such trust over the course of his tenure. This failure in pastoral leadership is the result of a number of factors, including his leadership style, his unwillingness to dialogue with Catholics on their legitimate concerns, his dismissive stance and pastorally insensitive way of dealing with those who disagree with his agenda and priorities, his promoting of a culture that values self-protection and secrecy above disclosure and justice, and his ill-judged, perhaps even criminal mishandling of a number of recent cases involving both known sexually abusing priests and highly suspect ones. These cases and the archdiocese’s well-publicized mismanagement of them have shocked and scandalized many – both within and beyond the archdiocese.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRELAND
Journal

THE JUSTICE MINISTER Alan Shatter has confirmed that the first payments to survivors of the Magdalene Laundries will be made in the next four to six weeks.

Speaking in the Dáil this evening, Shatter said that over 600 applications have been made for lump-sum payments from the redress scheme established by his Department in the wake of the McAleese report.
Of these, Shatter said that over 200 applications have been processed to an advanced stage and the final details of the scheme were agreed at Cabinet this morning.

He said he expects his Department to be in a position to make its first offers of payments to survivors of the laundries in the next four to six weeks.

He also said that the provision of other benefits, including weekly payments from the Department of Social Protection and medical services from the Department of Health, will be dependent on the introduction of administrative and legislative measures and said work has already begun on this.

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NETHERLANDS
The Raw Story

By Agence France-Presse
Monday, November 4, 2013

A Dutch rights group said Monday it had identified over 1,000 paedophiles around the world by offering online sex with a computer-generated 10-year-old Filipina girl called Sweetie.

Terre des Hommes Netherlands has now handed over to police the identities of those who were willing to pay children in developing countries for online sex, a growing phenomenon, it said.

“They were ready to pay Sweetie for sexual acts in front of her webcam,” the rights group’s head Albert Jaap van Santbrink told journalists in The Hague.

The group said it wanted to raise the alarm about a largely unknown but quickly spreading new form of child exploitation that has tens of thousands of victims in the Philippines alone, known as webcam child sex tourism. …

Within a 10-week period, over 20,000 predators from 71 countries approached Sweetie, asking for webcam sex performances.

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

Editorial

Amid the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ recent disclosure it will limit information provided to panels it created to look into clergy sex abuse issues, here are three simple questions.

• What’s the price of silence?

For Pennsylvania State University, it’s literally $59.7 million to 26 sexual abuse victims of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky — plus more than $50 million on related costs. (Think lawyers’ fees, public relations expenses, and making new rules related to children and sexual abuse complaints.)

But be assured, it’s costing those victims and Penn State much more than money.

Those 26 people must live their lives knowing they were abused because adults didn’t do the right thing. Suddenly a big check seems like small compensation.

Meanwhile, a once-storied football program stands decimated while clouds hang posthumously over the record and reputation of once-iconic coach Joe Paterno.

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PERU
Jornada

[Summary: Priest Victor Medina, who is accused to sexually abusing a 17-year-old ex-seminarian, would be free from prosecution since the law allows full sex with minors who are older than 14, according to the dean of the Ayacucho bar.]

Según el decano del Colegio de Abogados de Ayacucho, Víctor Oriundo Medina, el sacerdote implicado en el presunto delito de abuso sexual contra un exseminarista de 17 años podría quedar libre de toda acusación según el pleno de jurisprudencia que permite las relaciones sexuales con menores de edad que sean mayores de 14 años.

Oriundo Medina dijo que en caso de que la presunta víctima mayor de 14 años declare que la relación sexual fue con su consentimiento el presunto responsable quedaría exculpado, ya que la ley lo ampara.

El decano de los abogados ayacuchanos lamentó que situaciones de posibles violaciones queden impunes por este tipo de leyes que van en contra de los derechos de la persona, pues las declaraciones podrían variar por cuestiones de presión o amenazas a la víctima.

En caso del menor que acusó al sacerdote Alejandro Balazar García, Oriundo Medina dijo que los abogados que llevan el caso deberían pedir una ampliatoria de sus declaraciones para verificar sus versiones, porque se podría sospechar que haya aceptado por algún tipo de presión o amenaza por parte del acusado.

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MISSOURI
Courthouse News Service

By JOE HARRIS

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CN) – A state judge approved a $1.35 million settlement against the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese, in a civil lawsuit alleging priest sex abuse.

The girl, who was not identified, and her parents sued the diocese, Bishop Robert Finn and the Rev. Shawn Ratigan in 2011.

Ratigan was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison in September this year after pleading guilty to five child pornography counts.

Courthouse News first reported on the lawsuit in June 2011. The girl and her parents claimed the diocese and Finn knew about the pornographic pictures of the girl and other minor victims for almost six months before notifying police.

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IRELAND
Limerick Leader

THE BISHOP of Limerick has re-iterated his message to survivors of “horrific” clerical abuse that he wants to make their pain ‘his own’ and seek forgiveness, writes Anne Sheridan.

Speaking at a mass for survivors of abuse, called A Mass of Healing and Hope in St Saviour’s Church, Dr Brendan Leahy said: “We are all of us here because we want to support one another and, in some way, bring comfort and healing to what has been a most painful experience for many here today. It is moving that so many are here, still caring enough to want to be here, despite the abuse you have suffered in the past.”

“You have made this journey because this is a time of healing and hope. On the one hand, we receive this gift from God but also we give this gift to one another by coming here to support and be with one another.

“Thanks for hanging on in your faith despite everything. Thanks for making the effort to be here. Thanks for this coming together as part of our ongoing process of reconciliation.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

KENYA
Standard Digital

By Willis Oketch

Mombasa, Kenya: A Catholic priest who was sued by a woman in Mombasa for allegedly siring a child with her 14 years ago now wants the case against him dismissed.

Father Josephat Mweu Mwanzia wants the case filed by Syovinya Cecilia Mbiki dismissed after DNA tests done in South Africa and Kenya exonerated him from blame.

Monday lawyer Kiunga Kingirwa for Fr Mwanzia told Mombasa Senior Resident Magistrate Betty Koech that the case against his client should now be dismissed on grounds that there is no evidence against him.

He said laboratory reports from The Karen Hospital in Nairobi and Pathcare Paternity laboratory in South Africa had clearly shown that his client was not the biological father of the child in question.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service | Nov. 5, 2013

VATICAN CITY Blessed John Paul II’s 2004 meeting with and praise of the founder of the Legionaries of Christ — who later was banished to a life of penance because of sexual abuse — was a mistake, said the late pope’s longtime secretary.

“The Holy Father should not have received that individual,” said Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, who served as personal secretary to the pope for 39 years.

In a new book, Ho Vissuto con un Santo, (“I Lived with a Saint”), released in early November, Dziwisz said the meeting was just one example of a serious lack of communication in the Roman Curia, which Pope John Paul tried, largely without success, to reform.

Although rumors had been circulating for years that the Legionaries’ founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, had sexually abused seminarians, Dziwisz said, “When the Holy Father met him, he knew nothing, absolutely nothing. For him, he was still the founder of a great religious order and that’s it. No one had told him anything, not even about the rumors going around.”

“Unfortunately,” the cardinal said, “it was the consequence of a still extremely bureaucratic structure” where important information was not always shared.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano Tue., Nov. 5 2013

It’s almost been 3 years since I broke the news that Ricardo Aldana, a Spanish teacher and volleyball coach at JSerra High School down in San Juan Capistrano, was arrested on charged of molesting a student at the school. He faces seven felony counts of lewd acts upon a child, and sources tell the Weekly it’s a seeming slam dunk case for the prosecution.

But yesterday came word that Aldana’s trial has been postponed yet again at the request of super-attorney Michael Molfetta (who also represents accused serial killer Itzcoatl Ocampo–Mikey really knows how to pick’em!), meaning any proposed trial won’t happen until January 2014 at the earliest? Reason? The delayyyyyyyyyyyy game.

It’s a classic tactic of defense lawyers in the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal: keep postponing a trial until the victim becomes an adult, until the teenager becomes a young adult and an easily swayed jury can be persuaded that the molestation was consensual because look at them! They’re young adults of age!

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Hunter Stuart
Hunter@huffingtonpost.com

In a move toward destigmatizing pedophilia, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in its updated Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), distinguishes between pedophiles who desire sex with children, and those who act on those desires.

The former group — those who want to have sex with children but whose desires are not distressing or harmful to themselves or others — is no longer classified as having a psychiatric condition in the updated DSM.

“The difference [from the last edition of the DSM] is, you’re not automatically saying that as soon as someone has a marked, unusual erotic interest that they have a mental disorder,” said Ray Blanchard, who cowrote the chapter on sexual disorders in the new DSM.

The change in the DSM, a kind of Bible among medical professionals, lawmakers, and drug and insurance companies, doesn’t just apply to pedophilia, but to several other deviant sexual desires listed in the manual. It represents “a subtle but crucial difference that makes it possible for an individual to engage in consensual atypical sexual behavior without inappropriately being labeled with a mental disorder,” explains the APA in its DSM-5 Paraphilic Disorders Fact Sheet.

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NEW JERSEY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday November 5, 2013

Statement by Mark Crawford, SNAP New Jersey Director ( 732-632-7687, mecrawf@comcast.net )

Today and tomorrow, four cardinals, 40 bishops, and 250 priests will wine, dine and celebrate the promotion of one of their own as the newest monarch of the Newark Catholic Archdiocese.

And when it’s over, the on-going crisis of clergy child sex crimes being covered up by Newark Catholic officials will remain unaddressed.

It’s a disservice to kids to suggest otherwise. It hurts kids when adults deceive themselves into believing that any one man can or will “fix” this continuing crisis.

We are all desperate to see kids protected, predators exposed, enablers punished and cover ups uncovered in the Catholic church. But we cannot, in our desperation, cling to illusions that make adults feel better but leave children vulnerable.

Make no mistake about it: Archbishop John Myers is still in charge. Nothing has changed. When he retires, nothing will change. This isn’t about “bad apples.” It’s about a very, very corrupt barrel, led by old, secretive, rigid, male monarchs who are accustomed to being treated like royalty and often ignoring or breaking secular laws about children’s safety.

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CYPRUS
Greek Reporter

By Nikoleta Kalmouki on November 5, 2013

The District Court of Nicosia, passed a guilty verdict to a priest in Cyprus accused of abusing a minor girl. The family of the priest was the girl’s foster family.

The priest was accused for indecent assault, between 1995 and 2000, while the victim decided to speak after years, at the instigation of a psychologist who also testified in court. The psychologist explained that children of vulnerable ages are not able to understand what constitutes as abuse.

The court ordered the detention of the priest in the central prison until his sentencing. According to the newspaper “Politis,” the court having heard the oration of the defence counsel, will announce the priest’s sentence on Monday.

The welfare services office, who placed the girl in the family wasn’t worried as they hadn’t received any complaints. The girl had only once reported maltreatment by the priest’s wife, but they didn’t believe her.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Chile Sexual Abuse

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is calling on former residents of the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore NSW, who suffered child sexual abuse, to come forward.

Royal Commission CEO Janette Dines said the Commission is particularly interested in talking to anyone who made a claim to the Grafton Anglican Church.

“The Royal Commission is in the process of gathering information relevant to this matter. People’s experiences could help inform our next public hearing commencing on 18 November.

“We want to talk to anyone who was sexually abused at the North Coast Children’s Home and who made a claim,” Ms Dines said.

“We know that many children suffered terrible sexual abuse at the North Coast Children’s Home over a very long period of time, from the 1940s–1980s and that many victims are still suffering the long lasting effects of child sexual abuse.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites Australia researcher (article updated 4 November 2013)

A Catholic religious Brother is to face a committal hearing in a Queensland magistrates court, charged with sexual assault.

Police arrested the Brother in May 2013, placing him on bail pending the court proceedings. The case came up for a brief mention in court on 3 June 2013, and this was reported in the Cairns Post daily newspaper.

The case relates to one alleged incident. The alleged victim was not a student or a child.

The Brother, who occupies a senior position in a Catholic school in regional Queensland, indicated in court through his lawyer that he intends to contest the allegation.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

Broken Rites has researched a Sydney Catholic priest, Father Finian Egan, who has has been found guilty on one charge of rape and seven charges of indecent assault, committed against four young girls during a period of almost three decades.

On Monday 4 November 2013, a jury returned these Guilty verdicts in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court. He was found not guilty on one other charge of indecent assault.

Finian James Egan worked as a priest at Leichhardt and Carlingford (suburbs in Sydney), and at The Entrance (north of Sydney on the Central Coast).

The court was told that he targeted girls aged between 10 and 17 in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

Egan, aged 78 in 2013, pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The court was told that Egan is still officially a priest, although (now in his late seventies) he has retired from being in charge of a parish.

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CANADA
Sylvia’s Site

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Sylvia

The verdict for the Paul Leroux sex abuse trial will be delivered tomorrow in Battleford, Saskatchewan. I don’t have the start time, but it will probably be around 10 am. It wouldn;t hurt to be there at 09:30 am, just in case…

Let’s pray for the complainants, and pray that justice is done.

I encourage anyone who is within driving distance to try to get there. The complainants need your support.

Please send along a link to any media coverage of the outcome, or, if you do attend please post a comment or send me an email to let us know what happens.

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NEW JERSEY
NJTV

This week on NJ Capitol Report with Steve Adubato and Rafael Pi Roman: Mark Crawford, NJ State Director, SNAP; Thomas A. Bracken, President & CEO, New Jersey Chamber of Commerce; Joseph F. Scott, FACHE, President & CEO, Jersey City Medical Center; Chair, The Hospital Alliance of NJ

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

By ALFRED P. DOBLIN
RECORD EDITORIAL COLUMNIST

THERE IS a change coming in Newark, and it has nothing to do with Cory Booker’s departure for the U.S. Senate. On Tuesday, Bernard Hebda is officially welcomed to the Archdiocese of Newark as a coadjutor bishop. Archbishop John Myers will no longer be solo at the helm.

Myers is only 72, three years shy of mandatory retirement. When the announcement came in September that the Vatican had named a coadjutor archbishop, Myers said he had requested one. Maybe so, but as a longtime observer of bishops and their relations with Rome, the odds of the Vatican sending in a second-in-command three years before a bishop’s usual retirement for no reason other than a simple request for help are about as likely as Justin Bieber announcing he has a priestly vocation and is entering a seminary.

The Archdiocese of Newark is in need of a shepherd, not an autocrat. And Myers has been very good at the latter and not so hot at the former. The archdiocese may be on good financial footing; the cogs may be turning fine and dandy when it comes to processing money coming in and money going out. But when it comes to speaking to the people of his church, Myers has been less successful.

Today every Catholic bishop pays the price for what too many bishops failed for decades to do: stop pedophile priests from doing harm. Knee-jerk defenders of Catholicism contend that the media’s refusal to let this issue die is proof that most journalists are anti-Catholic.

Defending children is about as Catholic and Christian a thing as there is. The media doesn’t let the issue die because bishops can come and go, but the children who were scarred under their watch remain and someone has to shout to the heavens, “No more.”

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

PATRICK CARUANA AAP NOVEMBER 05, 2013

THE Catholic Church doesn’t want police allegations that it hindered investigations into child abuse included in a Victorian parliamentary committee’s report.

The report, which is due to be handed to parliament next week, will make findings and recommendations on institutional responses to child abuse.

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Graham Ashton told the inquiry that the church had covered up offending and not reported a single case to police.

Church spokesman Father Shane Mackinlay says the church has some reservations about the inquiry as it had not been able to test the evidence.

“The allegations that were made were presented in very general terms and without evidence to support them,” he told AAP.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

No amount of time or institutional muscle can match the power of the truth.

With the impending release of a Victorian parliamentary inquiry report, it appears the truth of institutional responses to child abuse is about to come out.

Abuse survivors have high hopes for the report’s findings, which come after an arduous 12 months of hearings around the state, involving often graphic and harrowing stories of sexual and physical abuse.

Judy Courtin, who is doing a PhD on sexual abuse and the Catholic Church, said the release of the report was hugely significant for victims.

“I think it will be a huge day for the victims and their families,” she said.

“They’ve opened up their hearts and souls to give evidence, which is always traumatic for them, and they will be hoping that there will be equal respect, if you like, coming back in the report.”

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
on November 05, 2013

The Catholic Church has a troubling track record of tucking its problems out of sight. It’s common for priests accused of molesting children to be shuffled to new parishes, allowing church leaders to ignore them.

The latest example: The Star-Ledger’s Mark Mueller reported Sunday that a number of priests — including some stripped of robes and collars after the church found accusations of abuse to be credible — were sent to a retirement home in Rutherford, right next to two Catholic schools. That follows other reports of accused priests who chaperoned youth retreats or taught in parish schools, each under the supposed supervision of church hierarchy.

Those are the acts of an organization and leadership that believe they are immune from consequences.

Were it not for expired statutes of limitations — which often ran out before young victims could report their abusers to authorities or even understand the full consequences of those attacks — many of these men might have faced prison, not retirement. That escape hatch closed in 1996, when New Jersey eliminated the time limit for criminal charges.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

November 5, 2013

A 49-yr-old man has appeared in Waverley Local Court charged with the indecent assault of two male children in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs in the 1980s.

Daniel Hayman was granted conditional bail with the matter being adjourned until November 20.

Rabbi Pinchus Feldman is the spiritual leader of the Sydney yeshiva Centre in Bondi which the two alleged victims attended. He has repeated his claims that he has no recollection of Hayman confessing his crimes in light of media claims that he did.

A report issued by NSW police stated: “Strike force detectives have arrested and charged a man over the alleged historical indecent assaults of two children in Sydney’s east.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Businessman Daniel Hayman has been arrested and charged with the alleged abuse of two teenagers dating back to the 1980s. Members of the New South Wales Strike Force Bungo were tipped off by the advocate group Tzedek about Mr Hayman’s return to NSW. The group’s CEO Manny Waks spoke to PM.

Transcript

MARK COLVIN: New South Wales Police have charged a 49-year-old man over the alleged abuse of two teenage boys in Sydney’s tight-knit Chabad Yeshiva community.

The man in question is a successful businessman, Daniel Hayman. In the 1980s he was a volunteer at camps ran by the Yeshiva Centre in Bondi.

Later, he became a philanthropist and set up a separate synagogue. For years he’s been living overseas.

The advocacy group Tzedek tipped off police to Daniel Hayman being back in the country.

Tzedek’s Manny Waks spoke to Sarah Farnsworth.

SARAH FARNSWORTH: How did you know Daniel Hayman was back in the country?

MANNY WAKS: We were given that information by a contact, that he had come back to Sydney apparently for the funeral of his mother, and when we had that information, we conveyed that to the New South Wales Police.

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AUSTRALIA/UNITED STATES
JTA

November 5, 2013

SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) – An Australian-born man who resides in the United States was charged with two counts of indecent assault against two children at a Sydney Chabad center in the 1980s.

Daniel (Gug) Hayman, who now lives in Los Angeles, was back in Sydney for the funeral of his mother last week. The 49-year-old was arrested Monday for allegedly assaulting two boys, then aged 14 and 16, between 1985 and 1986. He is alleged to have preyed upon them while he was a volunteer for a Chabad-run camp.

Hayman, the first alleged child sex offender to be arrested from the Sydney Jewish community,
appeared in court Monday but the case was adjourned until Nov. 20. He was refused bail, according to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Although Hayman was involved in the Yeshiva Center, the headquarters of Chabad in Sydney, he was never an employee, according to a Chabad spokesman.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

November 5, 2013

Richard Baker, Nick McKenzie

Sydney detectives have charged a businessman with child sexual abuse offences at Bondi’s Jewish Yeshiva centre during the 1980s.

A 49-year-old man was arrested on Monday afternoon in the suburb of Queens Park in Sydney’s east and later charged with two counts of gross indecency against 14 and 16 year old males at the Jewish Centre in 1985 and 1986.

He has been refused bail and detectives want people with further information about the alleged 1980s offences to come forward.

Fairfax Media has confirmed the arrested man is Daniel Hayman, who has been residing in Los Angeles in recent years.

The arrest and charging of Hayman overnight is likely to put some of Australia’s most senior rabbinical figures under scrutiny over their failures to act on complaints from victims.

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AUSTRALIA
Failed Messiah

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

Police in Sydney, Australia have arrested and charged a 49-year-old businessman, Daniel “Gug” Hayman, with charges related to child sexual abuse allegedly carried out at a camp affiliated with Chabad’s Yeshiva Centre in Bondi, The Age reported.

The alleged abuse took place in 1985 and 1986. The two alleged male victims were 14- and 16-years-old at the time of the alleged abuse, which allegedly took place while Hayman was working as a senior counselor at a Chabad camp run by the Yeshiva Centre.

Hayman, who was approximately 21- to 22-years old at the time the alleged abuse took place, was charged with two counts of gross indecency and was refused bail.

The Age reports that Hayman’s arrest and charging is “likely to put some of Australia’s most senior rabbinical figures under scrutiny over their failures to act on complaints from victims. Despite complaints, Hayman was never reported to police and left Australia to live in Los Angles Jewish community, where leaders again acted to shield him.”

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Advocates of victims of clergy abuse want laws changed to enable religious organisations like the Catholic Church to be sued and those who covered up crimes to be charged.

Churches have long been able to use technical defences to avoid being sued and advocates hope the Victorian parliamentary inquiry helps stop the practice.

Judy Courtin, who is conducting research into sexual assault and the Catholic Church, says there needs to be reforms within the Crimes Act to address the crime of concealment and cover up.

“If we are going to address one of the main elements of justice for victims, which is accountability of the hierarchy, that has to be addressed by making it easier to prosecute bishops and archbishops and other senior clergy,” she told AAP.

Ms Courtin says civil laws also need to be reformed.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Colette Douglas Home
Columnist

Charlene Downes was 14 when she disappeared 10 years ago, presumed murdered.

In her short life she might have been sexually abused by up to 100 men. The ghastliness of Charlene’s life and potential death cannot be exaggerated. She was of school age; in fact she had been expelled from school. Over the years did her behaviour ring no alarm bells about abuse with her teachers? Did a school nurse see no signs of sexual activity? What about her GP?

How could this happen in 21st-century Britain? Not only is it possible; we have a list of victims over whom we can only weep. The question is: how we can stop the growing litany of those who are abused time and time again.

Keir Starmer thinks there is a way. The former director of public prosecutions in England and Wales believes professionals who fail to report suspected child sex abuse should be prosecuted. He proposes fines or short prison sentences as punishment. On Panorama last night, he pointed out that similar mandatory reporting laws worked well in America, Canada and Australia. The Westminster Government reacted by saying no such reform was needed south of the border. Why not? Why not in Scotland?

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: TONY KENNEDY , Star Tribune Updated: November 4, 2013

Church spent heavily to prevent expansion of time limit for lawsuits by childhood sexual abuse victims.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis was at the forefront of extensive lobbying against efforts to expand the time limit for lawsuits by victims of childhood sexual abuse, according to a document obtained by the Star Tribune.

An internal accounting analysis prepared by the archdiocese shows that the lobbying association known as the Minnesota Religious Council received more than $800,000 from the Catholic Church during a seven-year period ending in the middle of 2008. A similar analysis was not available for subsequent years, but state lobbying records show the council spent more than $425,000 on lobbyists from 2006 through 2012.

Lobbying records also show the council doubled its lobbying force to six individuals on March 22, 2013, just weeks before the passage of the Child Victims Act. That law eliminated the statute of limitation for child sexual abuse cases going forward. It also created a three-year window for litigation of many previously barred claims in cases where churches, schools and other institutions failed to provide protection to children.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Support to stop the tragically high number of suicides among victims of clergy sexual abuse must be a key recommendation of a Victorian parliamentary inquiry, victims and advocates say.

Clergy abuse survivor Stephen Woods says the deaths are a indictment of the Catholic Church, with as many as 60 linked suicides in western Victoria.

He hopes the Victorian parliamentary inquiry will recommend providing funds for abuse survivors to pay for health bills, counselling, housing and living expenses.

“There are so many victims who are hurting and whose lives are still shattered from pedophilic activity, that society is going to have to support them for the rest of their lives – and that support needs to be adequate to stop the deaths,” he told AAP.

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AUSTRALIA
International Business Times

By Vittorio Hernandez | November 5, 2013

A jury at the Downing Centre District Court declared on Monday that 78-year-old Fr Finian Egan is guilty of seven counts of indecent assault and one count of rape which he committed over 30 years.

Fr Egan had been assigned as priest and youth worker in several Sydney dioceses and on the central coast.

Among his victims was a 10-year-old female student at the St Martha’s Institution for Disadvantaged Girls at Leichardt. The girl testified, quoted by The Sydney Morning Herald, “Father Egan pulled me onto his knee, he put his hands up my dress, pulled down my underwear and put his hands into my vagina … He had an erection.”

The incident happened at the sacristy of the church.

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IRELAND
Journal

AN IRISH CATHOLIC priest has been found guilty of the rape and indecent assault of three girls between 1961 and 1987 in Australia.

A jury in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court yesterday found Finian Egan, 78, guilty of eight charges spanning almost three decades.

All of the girls were aged between 10 and 17 when the abuse took place, the court heard. Egan, who is now retired, had denied the allegations during the three-week trial.

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NEW JERSEY
Road to Recovery

Road to Recovery, Inc.
P.O. Box 279
Livingston, NJ 07039
roberthoatson@gmail.com
NOVEMBER 4, 2013

Will new Newark Archbishop be transparent about clergy sexual abuse?
Will new Newark Archbishop release information about pedophile priests?
Can victims of clergy sexual abuse be confident that new Archbishop will treat them fairly?

What: A demonstration calling on the new Archbishop of Newark, Bernard Hebda, to be
honest, transparent, and truthful regarding sexual abuse of children by personnel of the Archdiocese of Newark and to treat victims with the respect they deserve.

When: Tuesday, November 5, 2013 from 1:00 PM until 3:00 PM (before and after the “Mass of Welcome” for new Archbishop Bernard Hebda).

Where: On the sidewalk across from the headquarters of the Archdiocese of Newark, 171
Clifton Avenue, Newark, NJ

Who: Survivors of clergy sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Newark; the President of
Road to Recovery, a non-profit charity that assists victims of sexual abuse; supporters, and friends.

Why: For twelve years under the leadership of Archbishop John Myers, the Newark
Archdiocese has spiraled out of control relative to clergy sexual abuse. Archbishop Myers repeatedly has allowed credibly accused priests to remain in ministry, live in church facilities where children are often present, and not to be held accountable for their crimes against children. When he has gotten caught, he arrogantly blames everyone else for his blunders, including sexual abuse victims and the media. The new Archbishop of Newark, Bernard Hebda, has a herculean task ahead if he adopts the leadership and management style of Archbishop Myers. He will fail. He will succeed, more than likely, should he choose to operate with complete honesty, truthfulness, and transparency.

Bernard Hebda must come with a clean slate. He must be what Archbishop Myers is not:
open, honest, truthful, compassionate, and transparent. Archbishop Hebda needs to meet with survivors and listen to their stories. He needs to treat survivors and their advocates with respect. In general, the “air” of arrogance, so visible in the administration of Archbishop Myers, must be replaced with the “air” of compassion and mercy.

Contacts: Robert M. Hoatson, Road to Recovery, Inc. – 862-368-2800 (survivor of clergy sexual abuse)
Kevin Waldrip, survivor of sexual abuse at Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish, Newark, NJ – 862-202-1499
Fred Marigliano, survivor of sexual abuse at St. Bernard’s Parish, Plainfield, NJ –
732-421-0033

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CYPRUS
Cyprus Mail

A 58-YEAR-OLD priest who was found guilty of indecently assaulting his underage step-daughter will be sentenced by Nicosia District Court next week. The decision was made after the welfare services report on the incident was released on Monday.

Residents from Ergates vuillage gathered outside the courts on Monday to show their support for their priest.

In her police statement, the girl claimed that she had been indecently assaulted between 1993 and 2000 during which time she was considered a minor.

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AUSTRALIA
Irish Times

Padraig Collins

Mon, Nov 4, 2013

An Irish priest has been found guilty of child sex offences committed in New South Wales over a period of 26 years.

Father Finian Egan was convicted in the Australian District Court on seven counts of indecent assault and one count of rape between 1961 and 1987, while he worked as a priest at two parishes in Sydney and one on the state’s central coast. He was found not guilty on one count of indecent assault.

Egan (78), who worked as a priest and youth worker in several dioceses, was found guilty of repeatedly abusing girls aged 10 to 17.

One attack he was convicted of was the indecent assault of a 10-year-old girl at St Martha’s Institution For Disadvantaged Girls in the Sydney suburb of Leichhardt.

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UNITED STATES
U.S. Catholic

By Bryan Cones

The promotion of the current bishop of Toledo, Leonard Blair, to archbishop of Hartford, Connecticut is being treated as a sign that Pope Francis is not as serious as he seems to be about putting an end to careerism among bishops. Protests have come especially from the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, though notably Tablet journalist and Toledo native Robert Mickens has also described Blair’s appointment as “more of the same.” Blair is known most recently for his position as one of the episcopal visitors of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

While I think the “promotion” of any bishop from one diocese to another is a sign of the careerism embedded in the current process of episcopal appointments, I’m not sure that some of the critics really understand how this works (not counting Mickens, who surely does). Take SNAP’s Claudia Vercellotti: “There is no congruency between the vision that Pope Francis puts forward and his actions here in Toledo, Ohio,” she said according to Toledo Faith and Values, a community news service associated with Religion News Service. “Either Pope Francis is asleep at the wheel and has no idea who he’s promoted, or he is ambivalent. Either way, it’s dangerous.”

The fact is, Pope Francis probably indeed has no idea who he has promoted because he likely doesn’t know Blair at all. These kinds of appointments begin at the national level, go through the papal nuncio, and on to the Congregation of Bishops, which makes the final decision for all practical purposes, and then forwards its decision to the pope. He could, of course, make a change, but he’d have no data on which to make that kind of decision. There are just too many dioceses in the world for him to be that hands on. Mickens is right: It’s an old boys’ network, and as long as the current crop of old boys in the U.S. are still bishop, they will still heavily influence who gets appointed.

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